


Star Trek: Constellations

by meesitm



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek Online, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2020-12-07 13:04:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20976356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meesitm/pseuds/meesitm
Summary: As a fresh graduate of Starfleet Academy, young Ryan has begun on his initial journey as an officer aboard the starship U.S.S. Constellation. This story take place as a series of log entries written by the main character (and others) in a "The Martian"-style of storytelling, depicting his thoughts and personal adventures as he travels and explores the galaxy. This story is primarily meant to be enjoyed by Star Trek fans, but it is written in a style that non-Trekkies can understand, follow along, and enjoy.





	1. The Introduction

Date: January 1, 2409

Time: 9:38:09 am

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86001.1:**

Dear Jordan,

Today is Graduation Day for us at Starfleet Academy. In a couple days, I’ll be heading to Earth Spacedock to receive my assignment. I hope I’ll be assigned to a starship; it’ll be really fun travelling the universe. I’ll still try to send messages to you whenever possible.

I hope to visit one more time before leaving; I’m going to miss Earth, my hometown in Florida in particular. It’ll be strange waking up and not seeing a blue sky out the window. I’ll miss the sunny weather, the beaches, and most importantly my house and friends. Well, my furry friend, Buddy, is more important, sorry, but you all are a close second.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86004.8:**

Dear Jordan,

I’m writing this on the shuttle to Earth Spacedock. I’ll be assigned to the _N.C.C. 1017 U.S.S. Constellation_. The _U.S.S. Constellation_ is one of those old Miranda-Class Light Cruisers that we saw pictures of in the museum a couple of years ago. It currently has a top speed of Warp 5, or 125 times the speed of light, which doesn’t compare to those new Odyssey-Class ships I told you about earlier, but I’ve got a couple tricks up my sleeve that may help to improve the ship.

We’re approaching the Spacedock now, I’ll write to you again once I’m on board the _Constellation_. Say hi to Buddy for me, will you?

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86005.5:**

Dear Jordan,

I’m in my quarters aboard the _Constellation_. We’re scheduled to depart at 1500 hours today. It’s just after midnight where I am; according to the clock, it’s a couple seconds before 12:11 am. The captain chose me to be the First Officer, being one of the best in my class. It also means I get to be on the Bridge, or the primary command center of the ship. I have a feeling I’m going to be in for a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, the relations between the Federation and the Klingon Empire is very poor. I wouldn’t be surprised if war broke out in the near future. I almost forgot to tell you: don’t feed Buddy cheese; it’ll make him sick, no matter what he tells you.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86006.9:**

Dear Jordan,

We were rushed into launching two and a half hours early in order to respond to a distress call in a nearby system, being the closest ship and the only one in the dry-dock that is space-worthy. Honestly, I’m worried that it might be the Klingons, in which case there might be an all-out war on our hands.

We’ll be entering the system in a few minutes; I’ll write to you once we’re done responding to the distress call.

* * *

**Acting Captain’s Log, Stardate 86009.1:**

After arriving at the location of the distress call, we found nothing except for a small freighter operated by a Ferengi in a nearby debris field. After discussing with the Ferengi, we were told one of his crewmen panicked after detecting large amounts of neutrino particles on the edge of the debris field. We decided to investigate the readings. We didn’t find any at the coordinates, but rather the signature came from a few hundred meters away from the freighter. Before we had any time to react, however, a Bird-of-Prey decloaked next to the freighter and disabled our engines with one shot. By the time we got our shields up, we suffered multiple hull breaches and lost phasers and engines.

Our first responsibility was to secure Engineering and restore the engines. The Captain and I left the Bridge and proceeded to the Engineering Deck. As it turned out, several Klingons had boarded the ship before we could get our shields up. We managed to take cover and reach a weapons locker, where we grabbed phasers and proceeded to fight off the Klingons.

Fighting them off, we managed to reach Main Engineering and seal off the room. Purging the impulse manifolds and restarting the impulse reactors, we managed to restore the impulse engines, but realized that the antimatter injectors were fried, which were essential for powering the warp core. The Captain and I both agreed we could salvage injectors from the debris field and proceeded to secure and leave Engineering and try to reach the Bridge. Unfortunately, we were ambushed on the way to the turbolift. We took cover at a T-intersection in the hallway, the captain took cover on the outer wall, while I took cover in the inner hallway. The Klingons were almost on top of us when a loud hissing noise filled the air, and after a second or two, the outer bulkhead ruptured, sucking the Klingon boarding party, along with the Captain, into space. I managed to grab onto an indent in the hallway and brace myself long enough for the forcefield to be put into place. I stayed for a moment, surveying the damage, before rushing to another nearby turbolift and heading for the Bridge.

The squeaky, hissing noise of the Bridge doors opening filled the room as I exited the turbolift. The other bridge officers asked about where the Captain was, and I recounted the incident in the corridor when the hull breached. Finishing my speech, I sat down in the Captain’s Chair and ordered the helm to proceed into a dense section of the debris field. The debris turned out to be highly effective in evading the Klingon’s sensors, and we managed to find three spare antimatter injectors almost immediately. We managed to have the antimatter injectors installed by the time we cleared the debris field, and the Klingon ship found us not long after. Luckily, we still had torpedoes and their shielding was down, so three well-placed torpedoes managed to cripple their weapons, engines, and communications systems. Although it is the duty of a Starfleet officer to help those in need, we did not see any reason to attempt to help the Klingons and proceeded to go to warp after reinitializing the warp core.

Our next destination is Earth Spacedock, which should take several hours at warp 2, due to severely damaged engines and the newly salvaged antimatter injectors not working as efficiently as we originally thought.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86011.9:**

Dear Jordan,

It was the Klingons.

We arrived at a debris field and found a small freighter run by a really short and fat Ferengi captain who really could have had better manners. He told us one of his engineers had panicked due to anomalous sensor readings when performing a diagnostic of one of the sensor arrays. We decided to investigate and requested the data the Ferengi ship took, to which he reluctantly agreed. The readings showed large concentrations of neutrino particles in a nearby empty region of the debris field. Entering the region, we ran a sensor sweep and didn’t see the said neutrino anomaly. Becoming a tad suspicious, the Captain ordered a full 360-degree sensor sweep around the ship, finding the neutrino anomaly instead near the Ferengi’s ship, approaching us. I just managed to say the words, “It could be a cloaking device,” before a Klingon ship decloaked and opened fire on us. The first shot disabled our engines, another shot from their disruptors disabled our phasers, which occurred almost a second before we were able to raise our shields. Turning to my left to look at the Captain, I said, “I’m going to Engineering, I might be able to repair the engines.” The Captain stood up, replying, “I’ll come with,” and walked along with me to the turbolift near the back of the Bridge.

The turbolift doors opened as the ship shook again from another disruptor blast. We heard the sounds of weapons fire and shouting ahead, and, finding a weapons locker nearby, armed ourselves and proceeded down the hallway towards Engineering. We managed to catch a Klingon boarding party from behind and take them down on our way to Engineering.

Entering Main Engineering, I went to work reviewing the status of the engines while the Captain went and sealed off all the entrances in case any other Klingons decided to come along. Finding debris from circuits clogging the impulse manifolds, I managed to purge them and, doing a cold restart of the Impulse reactors, restore the impulse engines. Turning to the warp engines, I checked the antimatter injectors only to find out the debris that was clogging the impulse manifolds was actually circuitry involved with the antimatter injectors, which were completely fried. I told this to the Captain, also suggesting that there might be some injectors in the debris field, and he agreed, and went to signal the Bridge. That was when we realized the comm system was down. We would have to reach the turbolift in order to reach the Bridge and navigate the debris field.

We quickly finished securing Engineering and began to head to a turbolift when we were cut off by another boarding party. We happened to be at a T-intersection in a hallway, so I took cover inside the hallway, and the captain took cover on the opposite wall. The Klingons were fierce; the disruptor blasts from their weapons like an unending wave of death separating the captain and me.

A loud hissing noise began to overcome the sound of disruptor and phaser fire. Realizing what was about to happen, I retreated down the hallway a couple steps and grabbed onto an indent in the wall. I turned around a second after retreating to shout to the captain to take cover when the opposite wall stretching between the captain and the Klingons exploded, sending the debris, along with the Klingons and the captain, out into space. The air rushing past my face as it was sucked out into space, I held on as tightly as possible until the force fields kicked in a couple of seconds later. A little wobbly, I stood up shakily as oxygen refilled what was left of the nearby hallway and looked out at the wreckage.

There’s a strange feeling you get when you look out into space through a force field or a hull breach. It looks almost peaceful or calming…until you see the bodies floating by you. Then it just becomes eerie. I still had to reach the Bridge, and quickly. Luckily, there was a turbolift a few meters down the inner hallway, allowing me to reach the Bridge.

Entering the Bridge, the stares of the bridge officers weighed me down as I walked across the room to the captain’s chair. “The was a hull breach on the Engineering deck, the captain was up against the wall that exploded, I was inside an inner hallway and managed to stay put until it was sealed,” I said gloomily. The others nodded slowly, and, sitting down in the chair, I managed to convey the words, “We can’t just sit here, we have impulse engines; we need to lose the Klingons in the debris.”

More confidently, I straightened up and started to give orders to the other officers, “Helm, set a course for the densest area of the debris, we might be able to lose the Klingons in the debris field. Science stations, scan the debris field for antimatter injectors; we’ll need at least three of them to safely power the warp core.”

It’s strange, the feelings you get when sitting in the captain’s chair of a starship. All of the power, the weight of all the decisions to be made, and the focus of everything and everyone on board presses down on you threatening to collapse you from the pressure. But at the same time, there’s this uplifting feeling, this feeling of awe, of confidence, of power, of freedom, empowering you and giving the strength to handle those stresses, to the point where you are almost unaffected by the pressure.

The other bridge officers immediately turned to their stations and went to work scanning the debris field while I worked with the navigator eluding the Klingons. After no more than five minutes of searching, one of the bridge officers on the opposite side of the room shouted, “I’ve found four functional injectors.”

“Beam them directly to engineering!” I replied.

“Sir” the helmsman started, grabbing my attention, “They’ve found us.”

There was a fearful tone to those words, and an aura of suspense that seemed to be focused on the Captain’s chair, where I happened to be sitting, I leaned back against the back of the chair and hit the intercom button on the right arm of the chair. Leaning to the right a smidge, I announced to the rest of the crew, “This is the Acting Captain speaking. All hands, Battle Stations!”

The Klingon ship was a couple kilometers away from the debris field, easily visible by our sensors, and approaching us slowly. “What’s the status of their ship?” I asked the Science Officer, a Vulcan ensign whose name I kept forgetting.

“I’m detecting multiple hull breaches, no shields, and fully charged disruptor banks,” she replied in an almost robotic tone, “Sir, we still have forward torpedoes, we can take them.”

Leaning forward a little, I determinedly said, “Target their weapons.” A couple seconds later, a click and whooshing sound told of a torpedo launching, hitting a spot right behind the torpedo tube of their ships. “Their weapons are down,” the science officer, whose name I remembered to be L’Vor, announced. “Again, this time their engines.” A second torpedo was launched and hit a spot just above their starboard engine, causing a massive explosion that blew out the ends of their starboard nacelle. “One more; don’t let them call for backup.” A third torpedo was launched, hitting the communications array. After a few moments of watching the Bird-of-Prey drifting about in flames, I received a message from Engineering stating that they are ready to reinitialize the warp core, which we did, and after a thorough inspection by the entire Engineering Department, they estimated our best possible speed to be around warp 2.

We’ve been travelling at warp for roughly 25 hours now and are expecting to be back at Earth Spacedock in another hour. I imagine there is going to be no time for me to meet up with you and Buddy between the repairs and all of the meetings I’ll have to go to due to the fact that we’re probably at war with the Klingons now. I’ll send you a communique soon.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86013.0:**

Dear Jordan,

It’s official. We’re at war.

On a slightly better note, they’ve named me interim captain of the U.S.S. Constellation due to the lack of captains available. We’re finishing up a few more repairs and will be launching in a few more hours. I’ll let you know more then.

I miss Buddy a lot; I'm sorry I can't visit during my time here. Could you send me a picture of him or maybe a message about his recent encounters?

* * *


	2. The Klingon War

* * *

_The whooshing, whining sound of the transporter filled his ear as he appeared on the transporter pad of the U.S.S. Constellation. Looking at the Transporter Officer, standing behind the controls nervously, he stepped down off of the pad and walked up to him, inquiring, “Where’s Ryan?” The transporter officer looked up at the Admiral and replied, “I believe he’s in Engineering, should I contact him for you?”_

_“No, it’s fine, I’ll go to him. And Ensign,” the Admiral began._

_He paused as the young officer looked up at him again, nervously._

_“Nice job on the transport,” he finished, and walked out of the room as the transporter officer smiled and gave a nervous sigh of relief at those words._

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86017.3:**

Dear Jordan,

I got a promotion!

After a couple of days of conferences, debriefings, briefings, and just about every other type of meeting they could hold, Starfleet has come up with a couple of plans on how to win this war. I can’t reveal any of these plans, due to security reasons, but the Admiral transported onto the ship about ninety minutes ago at 0600 hours and told me that they’ve decided to promote me to Lieutenant. I’m really excited about this!

On another note, I won’t be able to visit at all, since we’re departing this morning at 1100 hours for the Neutral Zone after we pick up another officer from the Celes System. Hopefully things will go well, and maybe I’ll be able to see you guys soon.

Also, thank you for sending me that image of Buddy, it was really funny, and I was laughing pretty hard; Buddy can be a big goofball sometimes.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86017.7:**

Three minutes ago, the U.S.S. Constellation left Spacedock to report to the Celes System, where we will hopefully be picking up a tactical specialist and transporting him to Deep Space K-7, on the edge of the Neutral Zone, where he will help coordinate our efforts against the Klingons. Even though I’ve managed to upgrade our top speed to warp 5.52, we’ll be there in approximately six hours, with the trip to the station being another eight hours. We’ve managed to upgrade the ship’s weapons and shield systems, but I’m hoping that we won’t have to test it at this time.

* * *

_“Captain, we’re approaching the Celes System,” Ensign L’Vor announced._

_ “Slow to impulse, take us in.”_

_ “Sir, I’m picking up some strange readings nearby, I think they’re some sort of transwarp signatures,” another nearby ensign said, a bit nervously, “They’re plasma-based”. Ensign L’Vor turned to Ryan and said, “There is only one known species that can achieve transwarp and uses a plasma-based engine system.” The young, new captain turned to face the main viewscreen, pulled at his uniform a bit, and spoke the chilling words, “Shields up, Red Alert! All hands to Battle Stations!”_

_ Only seconds later a large, cube-shaped vessel dropped out of warp._

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Supplemental:**

Apparently, the Borg decided that the planet Celes II would make an excellent target at this time for assimilation.

Shortly after arriving at the system, we detected a Borg cube as well as a couple of Planetary Assimilation Probes approaching the planet as well. We managed to relay a message to Starfleet asking for immediate assistance, but my estimate is we will have to wait a minimum of fifteen minutes until they receive the message, and another two hours before any assistance would be able to arrive, assuming there’s a ship to dispatch immediately once the message is received. We will be trying as hard as possible to stop any attempts by the Borg to land on the planet, but we are one ship against a numerous enemy that can constantly regenerate and adapt to our attacks. We’ll be lucky to escape this alive.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86019:**

Dear Jordan,

This has been one crazy incident after another.

First, the Klingons declared war on the Federation, now the Borg started attacking us at random. Okay, maybe not at random, this was a prominent outpost, but you know what I mean.

Have you ever heard of the Borg before? I’d be surprised if you haven’t, they attacked Earth about 40 years ago and it’s a major subject in Earth history. The Borg are a cybernetic species with a collective hive-mind without a conscience. I guess a beehive is the closest thing you could get to what the Borg is like, but they are not nearly as docile. They go about to other species in the galaxy and determine if they have any technology that would benefit them. If so, they capture the technology and the inhabitants and inject nanoprobes into them. The probes multiply and construct artificial organs as well as re-write the DNA of the host or hardware, effectively turning it into their own, or “assimilating” it. They then connect the people or technology into their collective mind and can control them as one would an arm or leg, basically making them a mindless drone, no freedom of thought, control, or individuality. Puppets, essentially, with strings reaching across thousands of light years via subspace.

Which, in my opinion, is a terrible way to exist.

What’s worse is that by assimilation they obtain the knowledge and memories of the person or hardware, allowing them to adapt and overcome any attacks whose strategies or components are known by the person or hardware, making many of our strategies and weapons useless against the Borg, and even fewer each time a person or ship is fully assimilated.

Regardless, we just arrived at the Celes system for our first mission and immediately we detected Borg engine signatures. Fun, right? Of all the days to attack the Celes system, it had to be today, and I’ve only been out here a week!

As I was saying, the Borg began to approach the planet, presumably to assimilate it, so we had to hold them off long enough for assistance to arrive, in the form of a Sovereign-Class starship, the _U.S.S. Sentinel_. We managed to eliminate two of the three probes before help showed up to fight the Borg cube, but unfortunately one of the probes slipped past us during the fight. We could only watch as it passed through the planet’s atmosphere. At that moment, the _Sentinel_ hailed us, audio only.

“One of the probes has landed, we need to start evacuation of the planet,” the captain of the _U.S.S. Sentinel_ stated over the communication.

“We’ll pull out who we can, but our orders are to escort a tactical specialist from this planet to the Neutral Zone,” I began, “and we’re already behind schedule.”

“Acknowledged, _Constellation_.” A chirping noise was heard as the communication was ended.

Standing up, I called for L’Vor to go down with me to the planet’s surface, and we headed off the Bridge and to the transporter room.

Personally, I like shuttlecraft, mostly because I enjoy piloting, but I trust the transporter, and unfortunately when you’re dealing with the Borg, the transporter is much more reliable than a shuttlecraft. But getting back on topic, we materialized on a trail along a mountain overlooking the trading post on Celes II, where the tactical specialist was supposed to be waiting for us. The problem was, looking down the unusually barren mountain, we saw the outpost already partially assimilated. In addition, there was a rather bulky structure on the far edge of the outpost, casting a very large and gloomy shadow. The structure, presumably the Borg probe that had landed, was sticking out of the ground like it was a drill or a chisel. The exposed portion had a large dome at the top, with part of the conic structure unburied and four large, rectangular landing legs had been detached from the center cone, looking like towers that had been slanted to extreme angles. All parts of the ship had wires and tubes sticking out randomly, like a menacing jigsaw puzzle, and had a dark green glow coming from exposed portions of circuitry, which covered the entire ship in a patchy green light. It looked like someone tried to make a neon-and-black camouflage dome with legs.

The outpost down below looked like a typical city on Earth, with its towering skyscrapers. However, the lush, green-and-blue landscape that normally accompanies cities on Earth was absent. Instead, there was a rocky terrain with bits of metal and green diodes, as if the ground itself was being assimilated. The closer the part of the outpost was to the probe, the more it looked like the Borg ship itself, with the dark paneling and green lighting slowly growing over the buildings like a virus.

We drew our phasers and began to proceed down the mountain trail towards the outpost. It was relatively calm and uneventful during our approach, surprisingly, but that changed once we arrived. Apparently, that “virus” that was growing over the buildings was faster than I anticipated, as it had nearly completed overtaking the outpost. Inside the compound, there were dozens of large, bulky, cybernetic humanoids patrolling the area, as if they knew we were trying to get inside.

Pulling out a tricorder, L’Vor started scanning, and reported that there were at least a dozen civilians still trapped inside the compound. We ran up against a nearby wall and attempted to sneak past the drones patrolling nearby. Surprisingly, it worked, and we were about 50 meters further inside the outpost than I thought we would ever reach.

Keep in mind, we’re only 50 meters inside the compound.

Using her tricorder, L’Vor started tracking down the life signs, which I followed about a meter behind, watching our back. After at least five minutes of searching and hiding, we reached a series of crates. According to L’Vor, the life signs were coming from behind said crates. I slowly walked around them and nearly lost my head as a phaser blast hit the wall next to me. Thankfully, this was followed by a gasp and an apology as a male Starfleet officer approached me and guided me behind the crates. He then looked out from behind them and made a motion which I assumed was to signal L’Vor to join us in the cover. Looking around, I saw at least ten civilians, huddled around each other looking very frightened, and an older woman wearing a Starfleet command uniform. “Are you the Commanding Officer of the outpost?” I inquired.

“Was,” she began, “There is no outpost now. We need to get these people out of here.”

I clicked on my combadge, signaling the _Constellation_, “Ryan to Constellation, we’ve found a dozen survivors, can you lock onto us?”

A staticky response followed, “We’re having trouble…patterns… interference…”

I looked towards the Commanding Officer of the outpost, “Do you have any pattern enhancers?”

She nodded and went to one of the crates on the wall opposite of the pile that they were using as a barrier. Pulling them out, she said, “There’s no space back here, cover me while I set them up.”

I nodded and motioned to L’Vor and the other Starfleet officer to go out in front of the crates and stand guard, then followed them, with the commander behind me. She worked quickly, despite her age, and managed to set all three up in about two minutes. We were fortunate enough to not have any encounters with Borg drones in that time.

Hitting my combadge again, I signaled the _Constellation_, whose response was a little clearer, “Ryan to Constellation, we’ve set up pattern enhancers, prepare to beam up the civilians and beam down two spatial charges.”

A whirring noise announced the arrival of the charges in the middle of the enhancers, and after L’Vor and I picked them up, the commander and the other ten civilians moved inside the perimeter of the pattern enhancers and were beamed up to the ship. Looking at the last Starfleet officer, I asked where the power source was. It was unfortunately encased by the probe, but the central computer was only a few meters away. Since it regulates the antimatter reactor, it would be just as effective. I had him beamed up, and L’Vor and I headed to a tall building that was partially assimilated, and upon entering, found three assimilated civilians, which meant we would be forced to fight. I pointed and fired my phaser at the closest of them, hitting them square in the chest, after which they fell. The other two fell just as quickly, luckily, due to the fact that they were not fully assimilated. We worked our way through the room and found the door to the computer core, which had conveniently been blown off its hinges by the Borg drones earlier as they stormed through the building. We planted one charge on the core, and another at the main control room at the entrance of the building. That was when the Borg found us.

We finished planting the final charge under the desk of the main control board, and started making our way to the entrance, only to find it blocked off by two fully assimilated Borg drones. Firing our phasers at each of them, one of them fell in a shower of sparks, but the phaser fire was absorbed by the other one; the Borg had adapted. L’Vor began tinkering with her phaser while I grabbed a chair and swung it at the drone, which it was not prepared for. The chair came crashing down on its collar bone and brought it down as several wires and tubes were severed in another shower of sparks.

“I’ve modified my phaser’s frequency to a different setting, I’ll be able to get a few more shots out of it before they adapt again,” L’Vor announced to me as we exited the building, heading back to the enhancers. Fortunately, that wasn’t necessary, as we didn’t see any more drones on our way back.

The second I was inside the pattern enhancers the ground shook violently and a bright flash behind me gave me the impression that the spatial charges had detonated, and the computer core was destroyed. That meant it would only be seconds before the power source overloaded and consumed the outpost in an antimatter explosion. Luckily, the _Constellation_ crew was faster than the uncontrolled reactor core and we were whisked back to the ship. I hit the intercom in the transporter room and asked the Bridge what the status was of the outpost and the probe, which thankfully was destroyed in the explosion. I then turned to the male Starfleet officer, who was apparently waiting in the transporter room for my return.

“I was told you’re the captain of the _U.S.S._ _Constellation_,” he said to me, “I am the tactical specialist you were ordered to retrieve.”

I gave a small sigh of relief at that, and replied, “Nice to meet you. My science officer, L’Vor, will show you to your quarters and we’ll be on our way momentarily as soon as we get these civilians to the _Sentinel_.”

Checking with the _U.S.S. Sentinel,_ we managed to rescue two Starfleet officers and ten civilians, while the _Sentinel_ was blocked by transport inhibitors that were put up around the outpost minutes after we arrived.

There were over 500 personnel living in that outpost.

Transferring the passengers was quick and easy, now that the Borg were eliminated in this area, and we are now on our way to the Neutral Zone. I’ll hopefully be able to contact you soon.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86019.9:**

The rest of our trip to Deep Space K-7 went uneventfully, and I’ve transported aboard along with the tactical specialist.

I keep thinking back to the attack at the Celes System, and the Borg in particular. The attack was completely unexpected, as I don’t fully understand the importance of the system, and the Planetary Assimilation Probes are rather new to me, since they weren’t discussed in class. I would know because I made sure never to miss a day of that class. The fact that they inject nanoprobes into an entire planet sounds way too inefficient, especially one of that size. How long would the nanoprobes take to burrow their way throughout the planet, anyways? And since the source that controls it was destroyed, along with a good portion of the planet’s face, did any of the nanoprobes manage to survive the explosion? It’s very puzzling. Transporting aboard the station, it took a little while to find the Station Commander’s office, but the first thing I noticed were a series of very small little balls of fluff laying around the floor of the station. Picking one up, it began purring, and I recognized them as Tribbles. Although tribbles are harmless, I do have some cause for concern, especially due to their overwhelming reproductive tendencies. Hopefully those concerns are not well founded.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86021.3:**

Dear Jordan,

Have you ever heard of a tribble before?

They’re probably best described as little balls of fluff that like to purr when being held. They apparently have some sort of effect on humanoids that are similar to when one sees a really cute animal, like Buddy. That is, except the Klingons. The two are mutual enemies, which sounds a little funny, in my opinion, since one is all fluff and adorably cute while the other one is all about battle and blood. The trouble with tribbles, however, is that if fed, they tend to breed extremely rapidly. The Klingons thought of them as a plague because of this, and purposefully went on a tribble hunt to wipe them out of existence, which was successful, and tribbles became extinct by the end of the 23rd century. Which brings the question: why are they here now, especially so close to the Klingon border?

Anyways, after transporting aboard the station, we took a turbolift directly to the Station Commander’s office. Knowing how much you like seeing some of the old antiques in museums, like the _NX-01_ _Enterprise_, I can only imagine how thrilled you would be to see K-7, since it’s been around since the 23rd century.

We entered the Station Commander’s office, where unfortunately the details of the meeting I cannot reveal to you via subspace, but my next assignment will take me to another one of these older starbases. Hopefully this will be all over soon.

* * *

_Transporting aboard, the young captain failed to notice the tribbles sitting on the transporter pad. With a whine and a whoosh, he was transported back, where he went over to a communication panel and ordered the bridge to prepare to lay in a course to the Drozana System, warp 3._

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86025.6:**

We have arrived at the station in the Drozana System, where we will be investigating strange activity.

There has been a recent sharp increase in both triolic and chroniton radiation. Triolic radiation is largely unresearched, but chroniton radiation is a very large indicator of temporal activity. If the Klingons are experimenting with time travel, we could be in serious trouble.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86030.0:**

Dear Jordan,

Today I learned to never underestimate a tribble.

That being said, do you want to guess what I did today?

So, I returned to the ship and set a course for the Drozana System, and after about 38 hours, we arrived to find an old station run by a Ferengi who really needs to shorten his sales pitch. Apparently, we were not the only ones, as there were at least half a dozen other ships from various other species in orbit waiting to dock.

Fortunately, they gave us permission to transport aboard rather than wait to dock, and I went aboard along with L’Vor and Will, the Chief Engineer of the _Constellation_ that I’ve become acquainted with.

I haven’t told you about Will, have I?

Will is a human who, actually, grew up not far from us. His full name is William John Wertz, but we call him Will for short. He is extremely fond of 23rd century design, like you, and has in fact replicated his own set of instruments with the 23rd century design, but with 25th century capabilities.

Anyways, after we transported aboard, we wandered a little, trying to find the source of the radiation, but only ran into locked doors and turbolifts. Apparently the Ferengi aren’t too fond of allowing access to the rest of the station. So, we decided to find the head Ferengi, who happened to be a bartender, and do business with them, since that _is_ what the species is best known for.

“Belan at your service. What would you like?” he asked as we approached the bar.

“We want information.”

The Ferengi perked up at that, and put on his business face, “Information? That’s not cheap. What do you want to know?”

“Anything on the Klingons—” I started, but was quickly pulled aside by Will, who told me that he’s detected the source of the radiation on the lower levels of the station. I straightened up a little more, not like it mattered, since I already towered over him, and added on, “—Or perhaps what you know about the triolic energy signature coming from the lower levels of the station.”

Apparently the Ferengi knew exactly what I was talking about, because his expression changed for a second to one of fear. Then he resumed his business face, and made an offer, “100 bars of Latinum.”

“That’s extortion!”

“50.”

“Lower.”

“25.”

I made an exasperated look.

“Fine, fine! If you can do a repair job, I’ll tell you what I know. The replicators have been overloading, and I’m running low on supplies,” Belan said.

I paused for a moment, then replied, “Agreed. Where can we access the replicator systems?”

We proceeded into the cargo bay the Ferengi directed and managed to reroute power. Then, after returning to the Belan, we were told the he’s closed off the lower levels due to the radiation, but he will allow access for us to investigate.

* * *

_Walking up to the turbolift, Ryan’s combadge chirped insistently. Tapping on it, the voice of the tactical officer, Lemal, came out of the combadge._

_ “Captain! We’re having an issue up here and need your help immediately.”_

_ “Acknowledged, Constellation. Prepare to beam us up.”_

_There was a brief pause, then the young captain spoke, “Energize.” And with a whoosh they were transported back to the ship… and onto a mountain of tribbles._

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Supplemental:**

So, Jordan, you might imagine what it’s like to fall into a pile of pillows. Now imagine the pillows squealing at you as you land onto them.

So, after managing to stand up (not on any tribbles), I tried to shuffle my way over to a comm panel and signal the bridge. A couple of squealing faceplants later, I reached the panel, and signaled the bridge…I thought. Apparently, there was a tribble inside the comm panel. How it got there…your guess is as good as mine. But for now, it appeared that I had to either physically reach the bridge or manage to de-tribble the comm panel and hope the bridge station has also been de-tribbled. I don’t think a tribble could fit inside the arm of my chair, anyways, but one can never tell, especially since there were three tribbles inside the tablet-sized panel when I pried it open. Thankfully, they only pushed out a couple of wires, and I managed to get it working in seconds.

“Ryan to Bridge, come in.”

No response. I opened the panel, noticed I forgot a wire, and tried again.

“Transporter Room to Bridge, come in.”

Still no response. Looks like I’m going to the bridge.

“Stay here, Will. L’Vor and I will try to reach the bridge.” I said, approaching the doorway. Luckily, there were no tribbles inside the door mechanisms, and they slid open normally. Unluckily, the tribbles now spilt into the hallways, knocking me over again. Amazing what a thigh-high sea of tribbles can do when they put their minds to it, like knocking over senior officers, for example.

Standing up again, I checked on the other officers (Will was fine, L’Vor had also faceplanted), then proceeded down the hallway. L’Vor followed along, and we shuffled towards the center of the ship, where the turbolift to the bridge is located. There were fewer tribbles in the hallways, so our longer strides turned into a shorter, faster shuffle, and eventually a sort of tip-toe as we stepped through the minefield of tribbles.

Approaching the turbolift, we tapped the panel, and heard a rejecting tone. Apparently the turbolifts aren’t working, either. We backtracked a little and passed through the auxiliary briefing room, where some tribbles had taken up residence on the conference table, and reached the central stairwell.

I know, staircases on a starship! Weird, right?

So, after ten flights of stairs, we reached deck 3. There were fewer tribbles here, or at least as far as I could tell. We took a right, passing counterclockwise around the communications bay, then took another right at the turbolifts, entered the senior officer’s lounge, passed up the staircase to the deck 2 Foyer, went up the port-side stairwell to deck 1, and took a left into the bridge.

“Report,” I commanded, walking into the captain’s chair.

“The tribbles are all over the ship,” Lemal reported, “We’re experiencing problems with our sensors, engine, and communications systems. The replicators are also having difficulties.”

Sitting down, I ordered the science stations to begin isolating all the tribble lifeforms, and the comm station to open a channel to Drozana station. I hit the comm station on the arm of my chair to contact Will, but the panel squealed instead.

Of course, there’s a tribble in the arm of my chair.

With a defeated sigh, I asked the comm station to contact Will in Transporter Room 4.

“I have Belan on subspace,” the comm officer reported.

“On screen.” Belan’s very orange face appeared on the large screen at the front of the bridge. “Hello Belan. You wouldn’t happen to have any derelict ships in orbit we could use, would you?” I inquired politely. Apparently, he was in a good mood, since he not only admitted to having one, he even let us have it, as a ‘gesture of good will’ for us helping him earlier. I told him of our plan and reassured him he could keep it after this was over.

“Is the Transporter Room ready?” I asked Will over the comm station.

“Ready as it’ll ever be. However, we’re having trouble scanning the region directly behind the port-side navigational deflector,” Will replied, a bit staticky over the comm station.

“We’ll send a team over to survey the deflector dish. For now, start with deck 1 and energize.”

I could hear a transporting sound coming from my chair.

“Deck 1 complete.”

“Continue through the decks,” I ordered, “Comm, get a damage control team to search the port-side navigational deflector for tribbles.”

It took several minutes, but we finally were free of tribbles. At least, I hope. Comm called up Belan again, where I told him the process was complete and just to remember if he needs to salvage something from that ship to not accidentally transport a tribble along with it, and then proceeded back to Transporter Room 4 with L’Vor and Lemal, where along with Will and one of our security officers, we transported down to the station.

Time to go down into the depths of Drozana Station.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86031.1:**

After averting the tribble disaster, I transported aboard the station along with L’Vor, Will, Lemal, and a security officer, Ensign James. We will be forced to take the turbolifts to the computer core, since the triolic radiation interferes with the transporter beam and the chroniton radiation has the possibility of materializing the person in a different time altogether.

The five of us entered the turbolift directly outside the transporter room and began our descent. The turbolifts in these old stations are rather slow compared to today’s standards, so we were inside it for at least two minutes as it descended. Fortunately, there was no elevator music.

A sudden change in both sound and direction alerted us to a problem, as we were not taken to the computer core at the bottom of the station, but instead redirected to Main Engineering.

Even worse, there was minimal power here, so we had to look around in almost complete darkness. That was when we found the first body.

Well, what was left of it, anyways. It appeared to be old, mainly because the uniform on the body was from the late-23rd to early-24th century. A large gash along the stomach suggested he had been split open, as if the attacker was trying to get at something inside of him.

L’Vor knelt in front of the body and started scanning it. “There’s major damage to his lower stomach and small intestine. The appendix is missing, and there are no other major traumas to his body. From the surrounding tissues, it appears he had appendicitis,” She stated.

We noticed a PADD laying on a nearby workbench. Picking it up, it contained a series of log entries. The first one on the PADD read:

_Isaac’s Engineering Log: An accident in the computer core has caused the evacuation of all the “living” beings to Main Engineering, and I have been left to deal with it. It was a simple radiation leak, deadly to humans, but relatively harmless to me, and I managed to fix it in about a month._

_I’ve never really been active for this long before. It’s an interesting experience. I’ve actually had time to waste while waiting on diagnostics. I decided to take up poetry. It’s an interesting subject, with many interesting writers. One outstanding writer appeals to me, a 19th-century Earth poet named Edgar Allan Poe. His writings, some of which I believe are called aphorisms, portray feelings of loneliness, of which I could relate to after this past month. I noticed a special one, “Science has not yet taught us if madness is not the sublimity of intelligence.” An interesting idea, I shall have to study this further._

A loud clang drew our attention as it sounded like bulkheads were being smashed with something non-metallic. We continued on, reaching Main Engineering only to find about a dozen or so more bodies, all of them mangled in some manner. There was a figure wearing an early 24th-century uniform, standing amongst them that disappeared in a flash within seconds of us entering. A PADD dropped to the floor in its place, and we approached it cautiously. Picking it up, it read:

_Isaac’s Engineering Log: After doing my daily inspections, I have discovered that a group of intruders are attempting to reach the computer core. I have diverted them nearby in order to deal with them. No one must be allowed to reach the core._

_I have been experimenting further with aphorisms. Judging from the content, I believe this one that I have composed may be worthy of Poe himself: “Murder is no less normal than shutting down a computer.” I believe it to be accurate, due to my own personal experience as a computer._

A flash behind us alerted us to the arrival of the figure. He was easily visible, around six feet tall, a bit stocky, with dark hair. Drawing our phasers, we cautiously backed away. The figure began approaching us rapidly, raising its hands in an attack posture. Up against the wall, we had no choice; we fired. The blast went straight through him, and he charged right through me and the wall, passing like a ghost.

Looking at the rest of the room, it appeared to be neatly kept with the exception of the bodies on the floor, which L’Vor observed to have been dead for a long time. A flashing light on the console pierced the darkness and caught our attention. Will and Lemal approached and pressed it, lighting up the rest of the console. Will announced to the rest of the away team, “This appears to be a file containing a holographic matrix.”

I walked over to them and had Lemal keep an eye out along with James and L’Vor. Looking at the console, it definitely contained a program for a hologram, but the matrix looked like it had a digital torpedo lodged into it. Many of the files were corrupted beyond repair, including the ethics subroutine. So, that explains the bodies, but now we need to find the hologram.

Fortunately, that wasn’t hard, as it appeared right behind James and put him into a headlock, choking him in the process. I turned just in time to see Lemal fire a phaser in their direction, only for the hologram to turn intangible, the force of which caused James to stumble forward, unconscious, while the phaser blast passed through the hologram and charred the bulkhead. He took one look at Lemal, then disappeared.

Rushing over to James, L’Vor began scanning him, and reported that he was alive. I ordered Will to try to shut down the program from the console, which was stubbornly throwing up encryption layers, while the rest of us still standing kept guard.

Apparently, the hologram didn’t like having his program tampered with, because he returned not long later, through one of the doorways this time, and charged for Will. He again disappeared before we could shoot him, but the weapon he was carrying, a large knife, clattered to the ground nearby James, having flown a few feet and bouncing off of one of the legs of the console.

He appeared again next to James, bent down to pick up the knife, and was preparing the use it when I fired, this time hitting the hologram squarely in the chest. The blast hit him, causing him to light up as his matrix overloaded and the program shut down, causing him to vanish in a flash of light. The knife, however, was still there, and fell, blade first, in James’ stomach.

Lemal went over and picked up James, then proceeded to rush back to the turbolift so we might be able to save him. Will turned back to the screen and tapped a few times, then called for me. I went over to the screen, and read what was apparently the hologram’s final log:

_Isaac’s Engineering Log: It appears the intruders have accessed my matrix. It’s only a matter of time before they shut me down._

_As the last member on this base, it is my duty to defend it against any intruders. That is why I have rigged the life-support systems to overload in the event of my “death”._

_As my final poem, I’ve chosen to mimic a rather famous line from 20th\- to 21st\- century Earth, “Death Happens, I’m only accelerating the process.”_

_After years of attempting to rid this station of the intruders on the upper levels, it pleases me to finally accomplish this task._

We quickly reached the life-support area, where it appears the hologram set up a remote-trigger with a small spatial charge. We rapidly disarmed it, then contacted the ship and called for an engineering team to come and remove the bomb.

L’Vor managed to figure out that the hologram’s poetry files were merged with his security files from the corruption, and, using the poems, was able to piece together the security code and access the computer core. Will, L’Vor, and I reached the core, and found a rift located next to a terminal. We will be entering the rift to investigate where it leads and how we might dispel it.

* * *

_Entering the rift, the trio appeared in what looked like a newer, cleaner version of Drozana Station. Tapping into the computer terminal, Ryan discovered the stardate to be 4201.1. They ran several scans of the rift, and, determining it safe to return, proceeded back to their proper time._

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86031.7:**

We have determined the source of radiation to be a triolic-temporal rift that originates around the date 4201. Our plan is to disguise the _U.S.S._ _Constellation_ as one of the old _Constitution-_class ships of that time. From there, we will be returning to the precise time the rift was opened and flood the computer core with anyons, which cancel out the effects of chronitons. Theoretically, this should “short out” the rift and collapse the temporal distortion. The triolic radiation should dissipate naturally once its source is gone, making that not a problem.

We will proceed with our attempt to travel back to the 23rd century in a few minutes. In the meantime, it is my unfortunate duty to report the death of Ensign James on stardate 86031.2 due to severe blood loss, concussion, and severe lacerations in the chest and neck. Lemal has volunteered to for the responsibility of writing to his parents, and his body has been offloaded to the _U.S.S. Victory_ to be returned to his family on Earth.

I only hope things don’t turn out as badly during this next mission.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 4202.9:**

We have managed to dispel the temporal rift aboard Drozana Station without raising suspicion and have proceeded with preparing our return trip when we received a distress call from an unknown vessel regarding a large device capable of “consuming” entire planets. As Starfleet officers, it is our duty to assist, so we set a course for the vessel and found nothing but debris and a large conical-shaped object.

“Science Stations, analysis.”

“The hull is reading as solid neutronium,” L’Vor stated, “There is an extremely large power signature coming from inside, I am unable to determine any of its inner workings—”

The cone turned to face us, its inside glowing bright orange, and light rapidly growing in intensity. “I’m reading a power surge,” L’Vor spoke up.

“Shields!”

The blast went through our shields. A whirring noise filled the room as the bridge crew was transported to Transporter Room 1, where Will was behind the console. “Glad I got you out in time,” Will stated, “the Bridge is gone.”

The lights flickered a little as the power dropped. “I’ve set a course away from the Doomsday Machine, and transferred control to the auxiliary control room,” Will continued.

“How much do you know about this thing?” I asked as we left the transporter room.

“It was one of the most iconic events that we studied in the 23rd century. You see, Captain Kirk responded to a distress call from the _U.S.S. Constellation_ and found the extremely damaged ship amongst a field of debris…” Will trailed off, realizing the same thing as me.

“Research everything you can on the event and meet me in the briefing room in 5 minutes,” I ordered while entering the auxiliary control room. The rest of the bridge crew took their stations while Lemal gave a damage report, “The forward sections of Decks 1 through 6 are exposed to space. The Bridge is destroyed, along with the main stairwell and the forward phaser array. 23 crew members are unaccounted for.”

“Status of the…Doom…thing,” I asked.

“It has disengaged pursuit and is heading back towards the asteroid field.”

I walked to the starboard doorway, beckoned for L’Vor, Lemal, and Will, and proceeded to the auxiliary briefing room.

My most immediate concern is not disrupting the timeline, so we would have to replicate every detail of this event. Unfortunately, as Will progressed with his recollection of the event, he mentioned that the _Constellation_ was lost along with her captain. Her crew was killed by the Machine after it destroyed one of the planets, according to the log.

Since the _U.S.S. Enterprise_ never saw the crew, it means we can evacuate them now and pretend they died. Problem number two: the captain died by flying the shuttlecraft into the machine. We probably can deal with that by creating a temporal vortex inside the machine and dropping a torpedo in its place. That leaves the third problem: Captain Kirk himself flew the _Constellation_ into the Doomsday Machine and somehow transported back to the Enterprise. We can recreate a 23rd century starship interior in the holodeck and redirect any transporter beams into the holodeck. But how do we make sure Kirk survives and returns back to the _Enterprise_?

We’ll deal with that problem when it arrives. For now, we need to evacuate the crew.

All personnel except for the senior officers were evacuated onto the shuttles while we set up the vortex which will take them to Earth Spacedock, or at least near it. Our main navigational deflector is split into two parts, making our job much easier. Thanks to the _Enterprise-E_ in 2373, we are able to mimic the Borg’s technique when it comes to time travel. Our starboard deflector will do that. Once they are in the right century, a small wormhole or similar anomaly can be projected just beyond the other side to send them home, using our port deflector.

At least, that’s our most plausible idea.

We managed to repair some minor damage to the starboard deflector and created the temporal vortex no problem. We had difficulties projecting the wormhole-like anomaly on the other side, mainly due to interference from the temporal vortex. After all of except the senior officers had left, we dispelled the vortex and diverted the rest of the power to the holographic projectors and the holodeck so that we can be ready when the _Enterprise_ arrives, since it was already on its way.

Lemal and I were in the auxiliary control room when Will called me on the comm panel, “Holographic systems are ready.”

“Acknowledged, Will.”

We decided that Will would play Commodore Decker, since he fits the physical description the best, after a change in hair color and a bit of stubble growth.

Commodore Decker, according to the historical logs, was captain of the _U.S.S. Constellation_ in the 23rd century. However, he doesn’t technically exist, so we will have to fake it.

I proceeded to the holodeck and found a perfectly realistic interior of the old cruisers, complete with structural damage. I found the holographic auxiliary control room and went over the systems with Will, since we will be allowing the controls on the holodeck to work on the actual ship.

Finishing, I decided it was best to wait and possibly brainstorm the last problem and headed back to the actual auxiliary control room on Deck 7.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Supplemental:**

This will be my final log as the commanding officer of the _Constellation_.

So, the Enterprise arrived, as it should, and everything was going well until Will—as Decker—started flying the shuttle into the Doomsday Machine. We got the temporal vortex up no problem, but the port deflector started malfunctioning, so as I went to investigate, L’Vor and Lemal tried to manually set the coordinates of the wormhole-like anomaly. Will made it through with no problem, but we have no idea where he went. At least he’s in the right year.

I reached the port navigational deflector and found the cause of the problem immediately: tribbles.

Looks like we missed a few…hundred.

I started picking them off the consoles and out of the circuitry, but I soon realized I wouldn’t have enough time to fix the deflector and returned to the auxiliary control room after alerting the others through the comm system.

“Status.”

“Kirk hasn’t left the ship, and we’re increasing speed,” Lemal reported, “He’s rigged the impulse engines to explode.”

“The _Enterprise_ transporter is malfunctioning,” L’Vor said, “I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

“What’s wrong with their transporter?”

L’Vor tapped a few buttons, “Looks like the dematerialization circuits are fried.”

“Could we use our transporter to hand him off?”

“We’ll have to time it,” L’Vor said.

I stood up and started towards the port doorway. “Tell me over the comm system,” I shouted while running out towards the transporter room.

I entered, activated the comm panel, and awaited a response. L’Vor’s voice came out of the speaker, “Their chief engineer thinks he’s fixed it, begin transport now.” Fortunately, it was seamless, and they didn’t know better. Unfortunately, we would have to abandon ship now.

I transported the remaining officers to the shuttlebay, including myself, and we all left in the one remaining shuttle: the captain’s yacht. It has a low-warp capability, so we were luckily able to reach the distortion before it could close, but the _Constellation’s_ engines exploded, and the distortion began closing around us. We passed through the temporal rift without incident, but the collapsing wormhole anomaly damaged the nacelles as we emerged in front of a desert-like planet. Navigation has failed, and we managed to send a distress call shortly before the communications array failed due to ionization in the atmosphere.

Hopefully we will survive.

**End Captain’s Log: N.C.C.-1017 U.S.S. Constellation**

* * *

_From a distance, they could see the bright flash in the night sky that appeared to be a crashing ship. Two large, bulky Nausicaan guards turned to their shorter but equally large Orion captain._

_“It appears we have some new property to collect,” the Orion said, “Assuming it survives, of course.” He gestured to the larger of the two guards, “Toconun, go visit our new claim in the morning with your men.”_

_“What if there are survivors?” the guard asked._

_The Orion turned away from the guards and back towards the night sky, replying, “Then we’ll have new contestants for our…entertainment.”_

* * *


	3. Stranded

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate unknown:**

Dear Jordan,

I’m currently somewhere in the middle of a desert in a crashed shuttle in…early morning, I think. The shuttle’s environmental control system is shot, so it’s currently freezing, but the sunrise means it’s going to warm up, and fast.

I’m the first one awake, so I checked on and awoke the others. L’Vor had a few scratches, and Lemal had a gash along his cheek, making his Cardassian physique all the more menacing. I found the emergency medical kit and treated both of their wounds, which were superficial, but my untrained hand couldn’t fix the scarring on Lemal (he says don’t worry, he likes the look). L’Vor found the emergency rations, and Lemal salvaged enough type-2 phasers for all of us, so we had a defense for whatever is out there, along with a heat source, which I don’t think will be too necessary, given that it’s a desert. I managed to find some coverings for us and pulled out the communications system, which upon closer inspection would no longer do us any good, and I found two tricorders which we could use to scan for other resources, like a water source. We only have enough food and water for about a week, between the three of us, maybe two if I can repair the replicator, which I did.

Now we have to find shelter.

The terrain was rather flat to the south-west, with mountainous regions along the east and north-west sides. We are in a shallow crater, apparently, so I can’t see too far in any direction. The best direction for us to travel would be north, since it’s the gentlest way to climbing the mountain range. We were about to leave the shuttle and head north when a disruptor blast scorched the port side of the shuttle. We’re not alone.

A group of figures were visible descending the eastern canyon wall, with bright green flashes coming from them, landing on the shuttle and in the sand around us. With the shuttle as our only cover, we rushed behind it, laying down cover fire along the way. The assailants kept approaching the shuttle, meaning we would have only minutes to escape…in the middle of an open desert.

Lemal entered the shuttle through the starboard hatch and began tampering with a few consoles. “Run!” Lemal shouted to us, “I’m rigging the shuttle’s engines to explode.”

He threw us his pack, containing a few days of food and water, and continued working on the console. L’Vor and I ran north for a short amount of time and turned around just in time to see the assailants enter the shuttle.

Then the shuttle exploded.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86036.9:**

Dear Jordan,

I don’t know what to say, other than I’d like to be home. I would like to lay down on the couch while Buddy climbs up to snuggle, even though he’s not allowed on the furniture, and watch the clear sky out the window, with the occasional shuttlecraft flying through the sky.

And I would give almost anything to have my ship back, or even just Lemal and the rest of my crew, currently who knows where. Well, I know where some of them are, but I’d like to not think of that.

L’Vor and I searched through the wreckage for any sign of Lemal or the attackers, and found the remains of at least three Nausicaans, which suggested that he either transported away or was so completely incinerated that not even a single trace of his body survived. The ionization from the explosion is interfering with the tricorders, so we couldn’t make much more of a determination. Unfortunately, the sun is rising, so we have to find shelter soon. Time to leave.

The sand had filled in overnight, eliminating most of the debris trail we left when crashing. It took us several hours, but we reached the northern edge of the mountain range and were about to climb it when L’Vor saw a metallic structure a few kilometers to the west of our location. Pulling out a tricorder, I started scanning and detected several dozen lifeforms. Well, it’s not like we have many other options.

Approaching the structure, it appeared to be a collection of panels from old ships fused together to form walls. The southern wall had a large opening with peeling, white letters across the top: Oasis. We entered. The place was an open-air village scrapped together from crashed ships. A large, central building loomed in the back of the village, with two hallways to either side of the entrance. The wall had an interior walkway, presumably for either defense or to access other buildings, many of which stood two stories tall. The central building, which is the only thing to look like a properly constructed building, had an indent in the front center, with two windows on the 2nd-floor and a doorway indented even further on the west side of the 1st-floor. There appeared to be music and loud voices on the other side of the door. We decided to enter the building, guessing that it would be the location of the head of the town and perhaps a government building or whatever is close to that in this place. It was a bar.

Typical of most multispecies bars, Ferengi excepted, there was loud, heavy metallic music, almost drowning out all conversation. Several people at the bar table, including the bartender, looked at the two of us suspiciously, but we were generally unnoticed. We decided to approach them, since they looked like they were the only ones who could give us information.

The bartender, a human male in his late 50s, looked away as he went to grab drinks for the two others, one a gray-haired Romulan, the other a middle-aged Trill. The Romulan, who was behind the Trill, stood up and walked in front of him, and asked what Starfleet would remotely be interested in these parts.

“We’re stranded here; we crashed in a shuttle nearby and got attacked by a group of Nausicaans—” He cut me off with a raise of his hand as he looked down and gave a somber expression. “You’re lucky to be alive, but you haven’t escaped them yet,” he said, turning to get his drink as the bartender had returned.

“You know them, Mr…” I asked.

“Ah! Of course, I am T’Lar, once a sub-commander of the Romulan military, now the only living lawman in this town.”

“Due to the Nausicaans, I presume?”

T’Lar leaned in the whispered, “This is not the place to discuss this,” then straightened, clapped me on the shoulder, and smiled, turning to the bartender for another pair of drinks for L’Vor and I. Something is wrong. I turned to L’Vor, who had an inquisitive expression, and saw a couple meters behind her a small group of people eyeing us suspiciously. They turned away back to their table when T’Lar turned me back around and half-shouted, “Come, we have so much to catch up on.”

I was led behind the bar and up a staircase to the second floor, which looked like a storage room. “I’m sure you noticed that group of people across the bar,” he said, checking the room, “They work for the Orion Syndicate, like the Nausicaans that attacked you and took your friend captive.”

Those last words hit me like a sucker punch, “Lemal’s alive?”

“Yes, I overheard them talking about a Starfleet officer they captured who blew up his shuttle a few kilometers south of here. I’m assuming he is a friend of yours.” He paused for a second, and then continued, “They’ve taken him back to their base and are aware of you and your friend downstairs. I doubt that you’ll see him again; the place is a fortress.”

The room was silent as I pondered the fact that Lemal was gone; then, a couple flashes of light illuminated the barely sunlit room through the southern windows. T’Lar walked over to the windows, looked, then walked back to me and the stairs while saying, “Stay close; we’ve got company.”

* * *

**Lemal’s Personal Log, Stardate unknown:**

A sudden white light and a whine in my ears suggested the shuttle’s engines had exploded. Didn’t expect to die like this.

Except I didn’t.

My surroundings darkened and the whine decreased in volume as I was materialized in a storage room, surrounded by Nausicaan guards. Before I could react, three of them rushed onto the transporter pad and grabbed me, almost dragging me off the pad. I managed to see a rather large Nausicaan guard step down from the transporter pad next to me, to which one of the others called for him while approaching. “Toconun,” I heard him say; then something pressed against my neck. A click, a hissing noise, and then blackness.

The next time I was awake, I was in a cell. The cells were in a L-shape along the wall, with an exit in the opposite corner. A plate of some charred meat sat just inside the cell door, presumably for me, and the other cells appeared to be empty, save for one middle-aged Trill, who appeared to be a more recent arrival.

He noticed me waking up and walked over to the edge of his cell closest to me, “You’re that Starfleet guy T’Lar told me about. Your friends were looking for you,” he said.

“Where are they now?” I asked.

“No clue, I got transported here a few minutes ago after being questioned by some Nausicaan in the middle of town,” he started, “Your friends are in trouble.”

I grabbed a hunk of the meat, which sadly broke apart like talc, and sighed, “Well, it’s not like we can do anything now—” I began.

The door to my cell clicked open, interrupting me, and a monotone female voice came over a speaker, “You are now to proceed to the contestant’s armory. Failure to do so will result in severe punishment.”

Well, it looks like I don’t have a choice. I stood up, walked out the cell door, out of the holding area, and found a rack of old yet well-kept weapons, with recently polished blades. The monotone female voice came back over the speaker, “You have one minute to choose a weapon.”

My eyes caught sight of a bat’leth. I’ve never actually handled a real one, but we received a bit of hand-to-hand and melee combat training involving bat’leths. I picked it up, it was a bit heavier than expected, and turned to face a large doorway. With a click and a groaning noise, the door lifted open, and I walked into a large, elliptical stadium that was an open-air, two-story arena. In the center was what appeared to be a massive scorpion-like creature, claws open, ready to fight.

I raised my bat’leth, stared at the creature, and charged.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86038:**

Dear Jordan,

The flash of light was a transporter beam as at least a dozen Nausicaans appeared in the town center. We had just exited the bar when we saw T’Lar’s trill friend get transported away. T’Lar told us to stay inside the bar, to which we very reluctantly agreed. The last we saw of him, he was walking over to their leader in a face-off, who looked strangely familiar. The bartender quickly hobbled over to us and led us out the back of the bar, where apparently a back door was installed. We thanked him, then quietly ran east along the mountainside. A loud series of disruptor blasts echoed for a second, then dead silence.

We don’t have much time.

After about two hours, we reached the edge of the northern mountain range when a transporter beam announced the arrival of another six Nausicaans.

We’re surrounded.

L’Vor and I raised our phasers, back-to-back, ready to fight, despite us being outnumbered and outgunned. I honestly didn’t think it would end this way, and as my last hope for rescue, or survival in general, slipped away, I began to hear a small whine in my ear, increasing in intensity. I looked around a bit as my vision faded to white.

Then a familiar face appeared.

“Sir! Are you alright?” It was Will.

Relieved, I sighed and looked around. We were in a shuttlecraft, passing over the wreckage of the runabout Lemal had blown up. Will determined that we were alright, then began explaining, “We managed to find your ion trail on long-range sensors back at Earth Spacedock. I got permission to lead a ship out here to search, and found you two in that town, I think it’s called Oasis. We would have transported you directly onboard, but the new system is a bit finicky, so I opted for the shuttle’s short-range transporter, and here we are.”

Taking a seat, I looked out the front window as the sky around us darkened into the blackness of space. We banked northeast, putting us into an equatorial orbit, and in the setting sun, a shadow loomed in front us: the silhouette of one of the older refit Constitution-class cruisers, with the lights of the saucer section and the deflector piercing the dark shadows of space. We passed over the bow of the ship, and upon looking, saw the illuminated registry, like a beacon of hope:

_ N.C.C. 1017-A U.S.S. Constellation_

Will proceeded to the aft section of the secondary hull, where the shuttlebay was located, but even as I stepped out of the shuttle onto the shiny, new hangar, there was only one thing on my mind:

We’re home.

* * *

_ **Begin Captain’s Log: N.C.C. 1017-A U.S.S. Constellation** _

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86038.4:**

_ Command of the U.S.S. Constellation has been transferred from Ensign William to Lieutenant Ryan as of Stardate 86038.1._

Having been reunited with most of my fellow officers and friends, there is still one more job to do before reporting back to Earth Spacedock and Starfleet Headquarters. Following the runabout incident and the disappearance of Ensign Lemal, I am putting together an away team in an attempt to penetrate the Orion Syndicate’s compound. This mission has two goals: to put an end to the Orion Syndicate’s oppression over this planet’s inhabitants, and if possible, recover Lemal in the event that he survived the explosion and is being held there. It is less than half an hour after midnight, and L’Vor and I have not had any sleep in the past 2 or 3 days, so we will be postponing the mission for at least eight hours per the doctor’s orders.

If Lemal is still alive, I only hope we can recover him in time. And if he isn’t, I will feel no guilt at the destruction of their base, by orbital bombardment if necessary. They will not get away with this.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86039.4:**

After L’Vor and I recovered, we met up in the Briefing Room on B-Deck to discuss final preparations and the strategy to take down the Orion Syndicate’s compound. A large portion of the place is underground, with an open-air arena, a watchtower, and a hangar as the main entry points. An arena probably isn’t a good entrance for obvious reasons, and the hangar is probably well-guarded. A shield is in place and the watchtower will probably alert them of incoming shuttles.

A subspace signal reached us from the surface. It was from the bartender at the town Oasis, who was asking for the Federation ship’s assistance. I proceeded to the bridge on A-Deck and had the comm officer patch him through. A familiar voice came over the speakers, T’Lar.

“Federation ship, our town is under siege by a Nausicaan attack force. We request assistance.”

I quickly opened a channel and responded, “T’Lar! It’s good to know you’re alive. We’ll be down shortly to assist you.” I closed the channel and called for a security team to meet Will and me in the armory on G-Deck for a briefing.

* * *

_After a quick briefing on the situation, the security officers began gearing up while William left to work on the transporter. Ryan looked around the armory, resting his eyes on a matching pair of pistol-style phasers. Picking them up, he twirled them in each hand, then stuck them to his utility belt, Ancient Western style._

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86039.7:**

Upon beaming down just behind the back entrance to the town, we could easily hear the shouting and weapons fire from inside the town. We entered and found several dozen people huddled behind the bar while others were tending to the wounded laying on the tables. The bartender saw me and approached, telling me that T’Lar is pinned at the main entrance. I directed the away team out the front of the bar into the center of town. We took cover against a few walls as disruptor blasts pummeled the front of the building and stray blasts hit the surrounding structures. I could see a Romulan expertly wielding a plasma rifle above the main entrance on the wall, basting Nausicaan after Nausicaan as waves of them stormed the entrance, a few of them getting through and storming the rest of the town. I directed the away team to break off into pairs, Ensigns Jina and Pyrel defending the west half of the town, Ensigns Tolos and Batan defending the east half. The new Betazoid recruit, Ensign Jiwa, joined me in assisting T’Lar at the main entrance. I drew my phasers and ascended the eastern stairwell, with Jiwa at my back, and joined T’Lar above the entrance.

This Orion must be extremely powerful in order to command such an army. I could count at least a hundred Nausicaans and a dozen Orions, each armed with ablative armor and disruptor rifles. Now, disruptor rifles can pack a punch, but they can’t puncture walls. Ablative armor is a problem, though, since it is designed to absorb energy blasts, which is what many weapons of this time use.

A disruptor blast whizzed by me as I raised my phasers and fired a series of blasts at the area from which is originated. A couple of Nausicaans got knocked off balance as the energy of the blast got absorbed, and one of them fell after getting hit in an exposed portion on their neck. I heard a bit of shouting as two Nausicaans had passed under us and were proceeding up the stairs behind us. I turned and managed to shoot them down, but not before one had fired their disruptor and virtually disintegrated Ensign Jiwa.

Either out of anger or determination, I turned back to the swarm of Nausicaans and Orions, whose numbers were slowly thinning, and with a bit of a yell, I half-slid half-jumped down the wall and began draining my phasers as I unleashed a shower of blasts on them, not caring where they landed, as long as the Nausicaans were falling. For the few that actually reached me a few elbows and heels downed them, and I didn’t stop until the power cells finally ran dry, leaving only five or six left, which T’Lar finished off easily. The wall behind me was charred and smoldering from their disruptor blasts, but I was relatively untouched. The remaining members of the away team reached the entrance; Ensigns Jina, Pyrel, and Tolos were alive, but Batan had fallen, like Jiwa.

Several minutes of silence passed, then T’Lar approached me and led me, along with the others, inside.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86039.9: **

Dear Jordan,

I honestly wish I had been faster; I know I could have been faster.

But even then, I still would not have been fast enough, and Jiwa still would not have survived.

After being led into the bar by T’Lar, a medical team was beamed down to help with treating the wounded. Most of the injuries were from falling structures being destabilized due to repeated disruptor fire, and one or two got grazed by some of the blasts, Fortunately, all were successfully treated except for a burn victim from a piece of smoldering bulkhead that collapsed onto her.

It’s honestly horrid, the way the Orion Syndicate has treated these people. They haven’t seen any new ships in ages, save for the very rare shipment of supplies the Orions “generously” give to them. In reality, the Orion Syndicate is a dirty pirate operation, dealing with black market goods, sabotage, assassinations, and trafficking, always looking for how to turn a profit from other people’s suffering or necessities. And unfortunately, you don’t just stop doing business with the Orions; they will always have some leverage over you in some manner. For these people, there is no way off the planet, and from what I’m told, many were damaged in an ion storm and fell to the surface, which curiously affects the same systems each time they fall: Navigational Control.

We need to stop them; Oasis deserves better. This needs to end.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86040.3:**

While Lieutenant Jenil, the new Chief Medical Officer on the Constellation, tended to the wounded, I discovered a transporter system located inside the bar. The bartender told me that it hasn’t worked in years, and it used to have a direct link with another transporter pad in a storage bay inside the Orion Syndicate’s Compound. Fixing it was easy; the phase transition coils just needed a bit of cleaning, especially with the sand being literally everywhere. I was able to power it up no problem and T’Lar noticed and offered to join me in storming the Compound.

Clicking my combadge, I called for three more security officers to join T’Lar and me. I plan to bring along Jenil in case we find Lemal or other prisoners. The six of us stepped onto the transporter pad, weapons drawn, as the bartender expertly activated the transporter and sent us into the heart of the Compound.

I am uncertain of what I will find.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86042.5:**

Materializing in a dimly lit room, crates of supplies lined the walls with a door on our right. We passed through it to find a corridor with a row of doors to our right with a longer door directly in front of us, reading “Mess Hall”. We appear to be in a housing area. Since the place is rather well kept, with names on the doors as we passed, it probably belonged to the guards, assuming there are any left. We reached the end of the corridor, which was a T-intersection that appeared to hold more housing on the right and a staircase to the left, heading up. We proceeded up the stairs when we heard a door behind us, turning, we saw a door open and a Nausicaan walking out, not yet noticing us. A quick phaser blast and the Nausicaan fell, stunned.

I have no clue if they have internal sensors or not, but a phaser blast is sure to get their attention. We will have to act fast. Proceeding up the stairs, the hallway took a left, with a door on our left and a fork at the end of the hallway. We approached the intersection, checking the door along the way, which was roughly translated as “Meeting Room.” Now we had to decide which way to go.

Jenil, T’Lar, and one of the security officers decided to go right, while the other two would go left with me. The hallway ended abruptly with a door on the side, opening up into a large hangar, nearly fully manned. We quickly closed the door before any of them noticed us and headed in the other direction, towards the others. Conveniently, we needed the catch them anyways since there was another split hallway, from which we could clearly see the watch tower and the arena entrances on either side. The sounds coming from the arena suggested an event, and Jenil took her team to take a look while I took mine to the watchtower.

The first two floors were entirely storage, enough to supply Oasis for years if not decades, but as we approached the third floor, we saw half a dozen guards; five of them were manning turrets while the last one was controlling what appeared to be a communications panel.

Acting quickly, I raised my right phaser and stunned the comm officer. The others turned to look at us as my team raised their phasers and fired, not on the stun setting, and they quickly took out the remaining guards. I walked over to the communications panel and found a map of the compound, with our life signs highlighted in red.

They know we’re here.

Since there’s no point in maintaining radio silence, I contacted the _Constellation_ and told them they could start sending in security teams. I deactivated the shield, since its controls were also accessible from that console, and, leaving my team at the tower to coordinate with the ship, rushed back down the stairs to join the others.

I reached the base of the tower and began heading down the hallway when a disruptor blast hit the right wall, coming from the hallway the hangar was attached to. I backed up against the wall for cover while the footsteps of approaching Nausicaans thundered in my ears. I dive-rolled across the opening, surprisingly avoiding their disruptor fire, and ran down the hallway towards Jenil and the others. Right into the arena.

Right into an extremely large scorpion.

By large, I’d guess at least two-meter-long pincers and a tail that could rival an orca whale from the 21st-century. And I saw a familiar Cardassian on the opposite side of the arena, in a tattered Starfleet uniform, wielding a bat’leth, fighting for his life, completely unaware of my presence. But still no sign of the others.

Trying to help out, I raised my phasers and started firing at the scorpion, the blasts harmlessly bouncing off its exoskeleton. That was enough to get its attention, though, since it backed away from Lemal and turned to face me, pincers open. Seeing his chance, Lemal raised his bat’leth and started chopping away at its legs, immobilizing it. At this point, a window above the entrance shattered as arcs of energy crackled between the exploding shards. Only seconds later did one of my security officers come flying out the window onto the sand below, dead.

I started towards the entrance only to see a hoard of Nausicaans walking towards it on the other side. Lemal ran up to me, and seeing this, said he would take care of it. I thrust one of my phasers into his hands and quickly rushed across the hallway before any of them could shoot, and found a staircase leading upstairs, where I found another familiar face: the lead Nausicaan that had attacked us at the shuttle, along with a fat Orion who appeared to be the leader. The Orion said something I couldn’t quite comprehend, but its meaning became clear enough when the Nausicaan drew his weapon while the Orion ran off through a side door at a speed I thought unnatural for a person that size. He raised his weapon, but I was faster, and he was knocked back against a chair, causing him to trip and fall back out the shattered window.

I didn’t have time to look out the window, and instead ran after the Orion. The door he went through led to a smaller hangar, which was presumably for his private use. Except whatever ship he had in here was gone, along with the Orion. I clicked my combadge to contact the _Constellation_ and had them begin scanning for a ship leaving the surface, then ran back to join Lemal. Fortunately, due to the arrival of more officers from the _Constellation_, Lemal was safe, and T’Lar had escorted Jenil to the holding areas to tend to the others, who will be transported to the ship for further treatment.

We had just contacted Oasis so they could begin bringing the supplies to the town when we were contacted by the _Constellation_. They reported a vessel approaching with its shields and weapons powered. Upon hearing this, I ordered everyone beamed aboard and for the ship to go to Red Alert.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86042.8:**

Walking onto the bridge, I asked for a status report. The new tactical officer, since Lemal is recovering in sickbay, reported that they have a visual on the ship, and put it on screen. I recognized it immediately as one of the old D-7 battle cruisers used by both the Klingons and the Romulans, and apparently so did T’Lar, since he rushed over to the tactical console and asked for the targeting display.

In the meantime, I told the comm officer to hail the vessel, and not to my surprise, the green lump of an Orion popped up on the screen. He spoke in a kind of guttural tone, “Ah, Lieutenant, what a pleasant surprise. I guess Toconun wasn’t so effective at his job after all.”

I stared at the screen as I gave my reply, “I don’t know who you are, but your presence here and the actions you have taken have violated several dozen Federation—”.

“But you’re forgetting, we’re several dozen light-years out of Federation territory. But I didn’t expect you to know that, especially since you passed through a wormhole to get here,” the Orion interrupted.

He paused for a moment while I asked the navigation officer to confirm, then the Orion continued. “Oh, you didn’t expect me not to know how your shuttle mysteriously appeared over my territory, did you? The ones who sold me this ship also were kind enough to lend me some of their data regarding your appearance after our scouts intercepted your ship. The wormhole came from many light-years away indeed. Across 5 sectors, at least. Too bad it’s all going to end right here.”

The communication was terminated as the navigational officer confirmed to me, we were in the Nimbus System, on the other side of Federation space and in fact just barely outside the Federation border. What was more helpful was that T’Lar knows the design of the D-7 battlecruiser facing off with us as he had helped work on refitting one many years ago during the evacuation of Romulus. A small weak point in the shields was present just behind the Bridge section, where one of the emitters was located. The problem is, there’s no way to easily reach said point from our current position.

The D-7 began closing on us, and at 15 kilometers began firing its disruptor cannons, slowly but surely draining the shields. I ordered all weapons to target the neck of the ship just behind the Bridge as it whizzed by us, barely missing our port nacelle. I ordered us to immediately turn hard to port and open fire. One blast after another hit the enemy ship, not one hitting its mark as it almost gracefully avoided several of the phaser beams. They managed to get around before we could and opened fire again, bringing our shields down nearly 30% as they sped past us. I ordered all power to the engines, and we turned around and managed to face them just barely before they could and in that split second, we fired a torpedo. With just barely enough room to spare, the torpedo landed on its mark, causing a massive explosion on the enemy vessel’s starboard side. I asked for the status of the ship, to which the tactical officer replied, “I’m reading internal damage and multiple systems failures. Their starboard shield is nonfunctional, and their other shields are severely damaged.”

At that point, L’Vor spoke up, saying that the other ship had sent a signal to the surface at a point away from both the compound and Oasis, but before she could finish her sentence, a bright flash consumed the screen as the Orion’s ship exploded.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86045:**

Dear Jordan,

These past two weeks have been quite intense, but I’m finally getting a break and some shore leave, along with the rest of my crew. T’Lar had agreed to wait at Oasis while another ship, the _U.S.S. Centaur_, will be coming to take over the investigation in the Nimbus system, acting as liaison and assisting them when possible.

I’ll be glad to see you and Buddy again, it feels like forever since I’ve been home. I can’t believe two weeks ago I was first graduating Starfleet Academy. It’ll be roughly eight hours until we reach Earth and another 45 minutes of debriefings, but I’ll be home around 1900 hours, maybe even in time for dinner.

I’ll see you soon!


	4. The Tal Shiar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious signal, and unexpected tragedy, and returning enemy. Hopefully the crew of the Constellation can find their way through the schemes before them.

**Charlie Reynolds’ Personal Log, Stardate 86050:**

We have arrived in the Nimbus System and picked up T’Lar during our visit to Oasis. Lieutenant Commander Ryan, who I forgot to congratulate on his promotion since it occurred after the _U.S.S. Centaur_ was rushed out following the debriefing, had mentioned that the town requested a few shuttles for travel and perhaps trade to nearby systems, so we have agreed to offload a few at the old compound that once belonged to the Orion Syndicate. In the meantime, I’ve had the _Centaur_ do continual scans of the planet using some of the telemetry given to us by the _Constellation_. With T’Lar’s help, we managed to locate a largely subterranean structure at around the coordinates the _Constellation_ had provided and will be sending an away team to investigate. T’Lar has volunteered to be on the away team, and I’ll be overseeing shuttle transfer.

Something doesn’t seem right, but I can’t tell exactly what the issue might be.

* * *

_A comm panel on the wall beeped insistently, summoning Reynolds to the bridge. Upon entering, he sat down in the captain’s chair and asked for a status report, but before anyone could respond, a distortion appeared in front of the ship, revealing a Valdore-class warbird. Reynolds leaned forward, eyes wide in shock, as the viewscreen became illuminated, and the front wall collapsed in front of them, throwing them out into space, looking upon their own vessel in flames, rendering them unable to hear the explosions…or the screams._

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86058.2:**

Dear Jordan,

Sorry about waking you up earlier, I got an urgent message from Starfleet Command. Apparently, we lost contact with the _U.S.S. Centaur_ three days ago while it was investigating the satellite station that we uncovered in the Nimbus System. Being the only ones with any experience regarding the situation, we’re being sent to investigate, and I now need to round up the crew by 0700 hours. I’ll give you more information once we’re on our way.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86059.1:**

Dear Jordan,

We’re currently about an hour away from the Nimbus System, and I’m finally getting time to write to you again.

Sadly, there’s not much information that we have. There was a brief distress signal that appeared and then we couldn’t even detect the ship on long-range sensors. Because of how close we are, L’Vor has been able to rule out a wormhole or spatial anomaly, and we have detected debris in orbit. Captain Reynolds is an experienced captain, but I fear the worst.

_in flames, rendering them unable to hear the explosions…or the screams._

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86059.5:**

We have arrived in the Nimbus System and immediately detected the debris of the _U.S.S. Centaur_ in orbit. We found enough bodies among the wreckage to determine that there are no survivors, and I have ordered a standing yellow alert until further notice. We’ve managed to make contact with Oasis, and they told us that the _Centaur_ had sent a team to the satellite station but failed to deliver all of the shuttles. My only course of action right now is to determine how the _U.S.S. Centaur_ was destroyed, and the only answers seem to lay inside the station. I’ll be taking an away team comprising myself, L’Vor, Lemal, Jenil, and two security officers, Ensigns Latel and Taron, to investigate the station.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86060.3:**

Beaming down, we ended up on the edge of a canyon opposite the station. The entrance was at the base of the canyon, and the surrounding minerals inhibited transporter activity. It took about an hour to make our way down the canyon, and Latel, having the gracefulness of a platypus, tripped and tumbled most of the way. After the rest of us rushed down without incident, we managed to stabilize Latel, who had a broken hip and dislocated shoulder. Lemal offered to stay with her until help arrived while the rest of us continued onwards, finding a heavy set of doors, presumably due to the sandstorms in the region, in a couple minutes.

The doors were stuck in place due to sand clogging the rails, but there was enough room to squeeze through and enter what looked like a cavern. The cavern looked unusually normal, like someone built a pair of large doors to protect nothing, but L’Vor found an energy signature coming from the opposite wall, revealing a hologram that disguised the entrance. We easily disabled the hologram and found a wide hallway to a set of double doors. We scanned for any further hidden objects, then, satisfied of our relative safety, passed through and found a lift, which apparently lead deeper beneath the surface. We all walked on the platform and activated the controls, causing the lift to first drop and then accelerate into a dark tunnel. After at least a full minute of darkness and the whirring of motors, the lift slowed, and we reached the end of the tunnel. The lift ascending as we reached a near stop and clicked into place as we noticed ourselves in a similar room. As the last of us stepped off, the lift undocked itself and sped back down the tunnel.

Looks like there’s no turning back.

We exited the room and entered a hallway lit with a dim green-turquoise light, branching off several times before reaching a door at the end. The four of us split up, each one taking a different hallway, while I took a detour to check the door. It led to an empty storage room, and the hallway was just some quarters, but what caught my eye was at either end of the hallway were two corridors, which converged to a central control station with consoles lining the walls, almost like a research center. L’Vor showed up only a minute later, reporting similar items in her branch of the hallway. The question is, however, where are the people? And more importantly, who?

Our combadges chirped, and Jenil’s voice came through them, “Sir, I’ve found T’Lar in a storage room, He’s badly injured and is asking for you immediately.” I told L’Vor to stay here to see what she could find, then ran back to one of the hallways, and found another smaller control room. I’m getting a few suspicions at this point, but right now I need to find Jenil.

Fortunately, it was easy to find the large storage room adjacent to the hallway, and I found Jenil hunched over a body propped up against the wall. Rushing over, I recognized it immediately as T’Lar. He saw me, perked up a little, and only said two words before passing out: Tal Shiar.

Jenil looked at me with a confused expression, “What’s a ‘tall shiar’?” to which I responded, “Trouble. We need to get out of here now.” I clicked my combadge and tried to signal the _Constellation_ but received no response; we’re too far underground. I quickly signaled the others to meet up at L’Vor’s location and helped Jenil carry T’Lar over to the main control center.

We found Taron and L’Vor searching the computer, trying to download as much data as possible. L’Vor told me that they left the station fully intact with the possibility of returning, and that it would be best to get rid of it. Taron went back the way we came in an attempt to summon the platform that brought us here while we continued working.

Then a blast of plasma struck the console near us. Apparently, there was an automated defense system we didn’t detect.

I quickly dove away as another blast hit where my head would have been, and I took aim as a weird, floating jellyfish-like drone appeared from one of the hallways. A quick blast from a phaser tore a chunk of its…bulb?... as it fell to the floor in sparks. L’Vor , who surprisingly kept looking through files on the console as if nothing happened, found a transporter pad in the back of the facility and helped carry T’Lar, while I went back for Taron. I found most of his body, now charred, at the bottom of the tunnel where the platform should have been, along with several more drones further down the tunnel, approaching. There was no time to recover the body; we had to leave quickly.

I managed to reach the transporter pad, where L’Vor was operating the controls. “I’ve set the reactor to overload. The auxiliary relays will absorb most of the damage, but this place will be fairly inoperable in a couple of seconds,” L’Vor factually stated as she stepped onto the transporter pad. The transporter pad activated automatically, and we materialized on the base of the canyon just in time to see a shower of sparks and discharges spew from the satellite towers on the surface, illuminating the midnight sky like an aura borealis.

A medical team had already arrived to help Latel, who was taken on a stretcher up the canyon, making our job a little easier. The ionization in the area made transport difficult, but after a short walk, the interference cleared up enough for transport, where I ordered immediate Red Alert and to head to the nearest starbase, maximum warp.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86061.2:**

Dear Jordan,

I’m writing this to you while we are on our way to Starbase 39. We found T’Lar, thankfully, but there may be a larger problem at work. And it all points to the Tal Shiar.

The Tal Shiar is a name I hoped not to hear for a long time. They are essentially the secret service of the Romulan Empire, or they were, until the Hobus Incident in 2387 and the subsequent fall of the Empire. Since then, they began to form a military force under an “empress” whose name we have not uncovered, working in secret at some unknown facility that we haven’t been able to find until very recently.

What’s disturbing is that long-range sensors have detected strange energy signatures emanating from deep space near those coordinates, which suggests something very powerful and probably dangerous. And since a starship would show up immediately on sensors, we’ll have to find some other way to sneak over and investigate.

This is a difficult task, but we’ve been in tough situations before, and I’m confident we’ll find something.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86062.1:**

After multiple discussions with Will, several engineers on Starbase 39, and Admiral T’nae, the current commanding officer of this sector, we’ve decided that a shuttle might be able to slip by unnoticed, and I have been selected to go along with my first officer, L’Vor, to investigate the outpost. Our mission is to gather as much intelligence as possible and neutralize any immediate threats, if possible. We’ll be leaving tonight.

* * *

_The Admiral has always enjoyed looking out the window in Ops as ships passed through the spacedock, but this time seemed different, like an important puzzle piece was missing from their plan, or a single bolt that held together a structure was starting to come loose. It was a tense feeling that bore into her Vulcan conscience, but like always, with all Vulcans, she maintained a calm and composed stature. It was at that moment that a console behind her started beeping rapidly, and a crewmember manning the station called out to her, “Sir, the station’s computer has gotten a match on the energy signatures you asked about. I think you better take a look.”_

_She spun around like a top and approached, looking towards the console on the way over. The second she was close enough to see the display, however, the feelings of tension and fear swelled, so much so that for the first time in their life, the young ensign at the console saw a Vulcan gasp in fright._

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Supplemental:**

After several hours, we arrived at a large station, in the shape of several cylindrical structures fused together, with a bulbous structure sticking out the side about two-thirds of the way up. We were able to detect a tachyon grid surrounding the station, extending several hundred kilometers away, and managed to bank starboard before we passed through it. This mission, unfortunately, has gotten much more difficult. We found a small nebulous cluster a few kilometers nearby and hid there for roughly an hour, attempting to hatch a plan while watching ship after ship pass through. Passive scanning managed to give us basic readings of the structure, but anything else might trip the sensor network, and once that happens, we’d be done for.

There’s an entrance on one edge, lodged open, which is large enough for a Galaxy-class starship to pass through. That would be our ticket in, once we can get past the tachyon grid. L’Vor noticed that most of the ships coming in and out were transports carrying supplies and equipment, but we couldn’t get closer readings without tripping their sensors as well.

Very soon after noticing this, we started to detect a series of asteroids heading by the station, which gave L’Vor an idea.

“If we can cut engines inside the asteroid cluster as they are passing into the tachyon grid, we might be able to disguise ourselves long enough to get close to the station. We’ll have to move ourselves to within 50 meters of the station to avoid further detection, but it might work,” L’Vor explained as she began prepping the shuttle’s systems. I joined in with shutting down all nonessential systems to minimize our power readings, and we had just enough time to slide in the middle of about 10 variously sized asteroids, match our momentum, and then cut the engines and the rest of the power systems, including life support.

“30 seconds to grid,” L’Vor began counting down every 5 seconds. At zero, we felt the ship’s momentum shift slightly as the tachyons bounced off our hull, and we passed inside the grid. “We’ll pass within 70 meters of the station in 10 seconds,” L’Vor stated.

“Activate life-support systems and ready engines.”

The seconds ticked down in a suspenseful manner until she finally said, “Now.”

We quickly activated the engines and swerved outside of the cluster and quickly fell into the station’s shadow, just past the inner boundary of their sensor range. Now we just need to get inside the station.

We kept all non-essential systems shut off and our other systems at minimum, just in case, and continued to trace the hull of the station until we reached the large door we saw earlier. Slipping in through the corner of the opening, we saw the station to be rather hollow, a bit like Earth Spacedock’s hangar bay. An enormous generator was located in the center, possibly a fusion reactor, judging from the shape, and a force field was located in the back off to the left.

“I don’t see anything of note in here, but that force field looks interesting,” I told L’Vor as she went through several sensor sweeps.

“I think I see an access point where we can shut down the force fields from out here.”

“Shall we?”

We passed along the inner hull over to the force field, where an antenna cluster appeared to receive the clearance codes to lower the field. After decoding for about 3 minutes, we managed to shut it down, and proceeded inside a hallway behind it, where we found a series of now inactive force field emitters. It looks like the station was originally built for safekeeping, but the new owners aren’t as concerned.

Then we found out why.

Passing by the last of the emitters, we found a smaller, but still rather vast, chamber with smaller areas embedded into the sides, some containing vessels and platforms, others carrying containers being held in place by docking clamps and tractor beams. In the center, held in place by both tractor beams and clamps the size of our shuttle, was a large spherical ship: a Borg sphere.

“Is it active?” I asked as L’Vor snapped out of a stare and started looking at her console.

“No, all of its systems have been shut down, and large portions of systems and equipment have been removed. It looks like they were taken apart neatly; this sphere is being deconstructed.”

“What for?” Then the realization hit me, “The transports.”

L’Vor stopped tapping at her console and looked at me, the same realization in her face. “We need to get out of here.”

“We should get rid of the sphere, too. Can’t have any more Borg technology getting out of here.”

“Agreed, I’m arming phasers.” L’Vor said as she tapped on her console.

Then a section of the sphere lit up.

“The sphere must be regenerating itself,” I said as I activated targeting scanners. The console beeped as I fired phasers at the powered section, blasting a small part of the sphere into oblivion as another section lit up, this time more internally.

I fired a lower-intensity phaser blast at the point where the clamps connect to the sphere, hoping to fuse them together. Whether or not it worked didn’t matter, as the sphere’s shielding has just been enabled and absorbed the blast like I was throwing wet pasta at it.

“We should go,” L’Vor said as she started to pilot the ship away. The ship shuddered as the sphere fired some form of disruptive charge that brought down our shields immediately. We raced into the hallway as the force fields began to flicker. We would only have seconds. Fortunately, I managed to restore shields rather quickly and we emerged in the first chamber, with about three romulan transports staring us down and the force fields activating behind us. L’Vor did a quick scan of the transport’s cargo hold and found the missing Borg technology, and I tried to hail them and warn them, but their response wasn’t worded and instead came in the form of weapons fire.

The door was still open, fortunately, and L’Vor was able to prime the warp core quickly while I piloted ourselves relatively out of harm’s way, passing close to the main reactor. A single phaser blast was let loose against one of the poloidal field coils before we got a clear path to the door, and L’Vor activated the warp drive, flinging us out of the station before any more shots could be made. There were no signs of pursuit, and no signs of the sphere.

We’ve had to drop out of warp to repair a glitch in one of the magnetic constriction segments in the warp core, but will be resuming course momentarily to return to Starbase 39.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86064.3:**

It is now morning.

We arrived back at Starbase 39 about 2 hours ago and gave the admiral our report. Apparently she found out about the energy signatures shortly after our departure and already relayed that portion of information back to Starfleet Command, but the rest of our report turned out to be rather valuable and was appreciated. I’ve returned to my quarters onboard the _Constellation_ to get some rest, but the only thing on my mind was this: why would the Romulans be interested in Borg technology? They should know by now that it’s highly unsafe to even attempt working with potentially live Borg technology, especially when it can still regenerate. Or assimilate. And if the Tal Shiar are involved, the implications of this would be enormous. They’re ruthless, sly, and right now with Borg technology they are a danger to everyone within a thousand light years or further.

If the Tal Shiar aren’t careful, they could be inadvertently giving the Borg exactly what they need to assimilate and conquer the galaxy just for the sake of their grand delusions of power. Hopefully they will learn before it is too late.

* * *

**Ryan’s Personal Log, Stardate 86065.8:**

Dear Jordan,

After a very nice 8 hours of sleep ordered by Jenil, in which she overruled the Admiral herself, L’Vor and I have woken up to a mid-afternoon monster hunt, except the target will be a Romulan convoy.

Basically, the weird energy readings were a space station that contained some rather interesting tech that I cannot discuss over open subspace communications due to policy, but we happened to find a convoy of Romulan transports, or rather they found us snooping inside the station, that were transporting the tech somewhere. It also happened to be very dangerous tech that would be similar to technology we encountered in the Celes system.

Getting the picture?

Anyways, after at least 5 hours of hunting, we found a small cluster of warp signatures in deep space somewhere near the border of the Sierra sector, so now Starfleet Command, at the Admiral’s request, has chosen the crew most experienced with the situation to investigate.

That would be us.

So, after a quick preparation on no notice, we made a hasty departure and are now on our way to search the region. Hopefully it’ll be a quick little thing where we won’t have to worry too much and everyone goes home safe and happy and everyone wins, right?

Whatever happens, I’ll be home sometime soon to see Buddy, and you, too.

* * *

_After travelling at warp for a couple hours, the _Constellation_ dropped out of warp to see a minor debris field. The tension on the ship was thick enough to cut with a knife as the young captain ordered sensors on full as the ship eased its way through the field. Passing by what could be estimated to be the center of the field, four blips appeared on the sensors, like an incomplete mask. Approaching closer, the engine signatures of the blips became more focused, and were more easily identified, but not before they came into visual range._

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86067.0:**

Apparently, we were too late.

We found a debris field at the coordinates where we were supposed to search, along with 4 ships. Tracking them, we came across four Romulan warbirds: two birds-of-prey, a D’Deridex battlecruiser, and one Valdore-class warbird. Trouble is, they did not look at all like how they should, they looked a bit greyer, more jagged than usual and the nacelle lighting was slightly off.

It was at this point when I realized what was going on and called for battle stations, as one of them, a bird-of-prey, turned towards us and started approaching. L’Vor also at that moment finished analyzing the energy signature of their engines, only confirming our worst fears: the Borg have taken control and are starting to assimilate it.

Then they fired.

The first shot caught us off guard, but with the shields up, they only dropped the forward shields by twelve percent. After a hard maneuver to starboard, they hit our port nacelle, dropping our port shielding by at least twenty percent and damaging one of the field grilles in the nacelle.

“Go to warp speed, any heading,” I ordered the helm. I heard the engines powering up, only to stall a few seconds later.

“Warp drive is offline,” the helmsman replied.

“Bridge to engineering, Will, get that warp drive online, and quickly,” I shouted into the comm system as the ship shuddered and sparks flew out of a nearby console.

“That last hit brought our shields down to 52%,” Lemal said, pressing several buttons on his console.

“Evasive maneuvers, return fire!” The ship rolled to the side as another blast hit the ship, causing L’Vor to fall out of her chair.

“Port shields are down to 28%. We will not hold out in these conditions,” Lemal stated as his fingers scrambled over switches. We heard a whir as he pressed a button, signaling the phasers firing. He responded seconds later, “The shielding on the enemy vessel has been weakened, but not significantly.” Another blast hit the ship, causing the entire bridge crew to get knocked around towards starboard, and L’Vor to fall back into her seat. “Port shields are gone, hull breach reported on Decks H, I, M, and N on the port aft. Force fields are holding,” Lemal reported.

Then I heard a whirring noise behind me.

Swiveling around, I found just I expected to find: a Borg drone. I stood up quickly and tackled it to the ground, pulling on wires and tubes on its head, hoping something would loosen, until I heard phaser fire hit the drone underneath me and it exploded in a shower of sparks, knocking me back on the ground next to my chair. I stood up, grabbed a phaser, and spoke into the comm, “This is the captain speaking. All hands, repel boarders. Protect critical systems.” I turned back around and walked through the doors on the bridge, pausing only for a moment to turn to L’Vor, saying, “You have the bridge, go to warp as soon as we can.”

I entered a turbolift and dropped down to G Deck, with the doors opening to a group of three drones, which I, instead of trying to fight all on my own, decided to run out the doors and down the hallway towards impulse engineering. A bit of weapons fire greeted me when I opened the doors, and I was forced to duck out of the way as a Borg drone had turned and fired a plasma blast into the wall right across from me. A few more blasts, along with a recalibration of my phaser, and it was down, but as I walked in, I saw the extent of the damage that had been done.

The room was lit green with grey paneling and bodies laid strewn across the floor, and several parts of the impulse engines were no longer glowing the familiar red light, but rather a lime green color. I signaled the bridge and engineering to get a status, and fortunately heard that Will got the warp engines online, but with only one nacelle to run on. I checked the rest of the room for signs of life, which no longer was evident, thanks to the Borg. About two or three minutes later, which was later than I had expected, the ship shudder violently, as if it was being torn apart, and continued to shake as we went into warp. I ran out of the room and over to a nearby viewing port. Where our port nacelle should have been, I saw only half a pylon, sparks and excess warp plasma flying out of it in small chunks. Walking back to the nearest comm panel, I told the bridge I’d be in engineering assisting Will in making repairs where possible and trudged to the nearest turbolift.

We remained at high warp for about 10 minutes until Jenil’s stomach couldn’t take anymore shaking, then dropped out of warp to seal off the pylon, refuel the plasma, and realign ourselves with our destination, as the collision we had with our own nacelle threw us extremely off course, before continuing at a lower warp to the nearest starbase. Will told me upon arrival that the Borg got inside engineering and started assimilating parts of the engine systems before we could go to warp, which reenabled the systems and caused this disaster. I later got the report from Lemal that the port nacelle, upon activation, tore itself off of its pylon and flew in front of us, scraping along the top of the hull and causing microfractures along the entirety of Decks D and E. It’s been about 7 hours now of travelling at about warp 1.8 while trying to not tear apart what’s left of the port side of the ship, and we’ve successfully repaired most of the internal damage and at least a quarter of the microfractures and breaches that occurred along the saucer section, but this ship took a beating and the parts that were assimilated, like the impulse engines, don’t look like they will be easily repairable. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the end of our journey aboard this ship.

I only wish we got to know her better.

* * *

**Captain’s Log, Stardate 86072.1:**

It is with grave uncertainty that I write this log entry. This will be the final log entry for this vessel.

It took over a full day of travelling to return to Starbase 39, at the end of which I got a very stern look by the Admiral there and another day of debriefing on the situation. My crew is getting a couple days of shore leave as an inspection team will be salvaging what they can of the ship, along with attempting to remove the Borg circuitry to study, an act which I advise strongly against as it was that type of action that put us in this situation in the first place.

After completing my report on the events that occurred and a very thorough debriefing by Starfleet Command, they decided that I and my crew handled the situation to the best of our capabilities and we won’t be spending the next few months on an assignment scrubbing plasma conduits like I was expecting. Instead, they are commissioning another ship better designed to help us with what they’ve coined as our new “problem.” Apparently, it is waiting for us at the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards in Mars orbit. I’m not sure whether to be excited or concerned about this.

On a more personal note, I am worried. The Tal Shiar had four warbirds that aren’t exactly old technology, and worse, might still have cloaking devices onboard, which are now at least partially assimilated and entirely under Borg control. Who knows what might happen if they gain access to cloaking technology? Or worse, use it to come knocking on our door like the last fight nearly 40 years ago, only this time we will not be prepared. I’m putting a recommendation in to Starfleet to be on alert.

**End Captain’s Log: ** **N.C.C. 1017-A U.S.S. Constellation**

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of 6/27, I am very nearly done with Chapter 5, I am being pulled away from finishing for various reasons, but I intend to have it posted soon (hopefully before August, but we'll see what life throws at the Earth).
> 
> Also apparently I messed up on a small continuity issue in which the war referenced actually exists (Federation-Klingon War of 2405-2410) and so after posting Chapter 5 I'll be going back and reworking the Introduction and relevant log entries.


End file.
